Former Baltimore Council Chief Dies

Published 7:00 pm, Sunday, February 10, 2002

Walter S. Orlinsky, who resigned as president of the Baltimore City Council in a bribery scandal but was later pardoned by President Clinton, died of colon cancer. He was 63.

Orlinsky died Saturday at the Gilchrist Center for Hospice Care.

In the spring of 1982, Orlinsky was City Council president when he went to a restaurant and accepted an envelope stuffed with $2,532 in cash from an FBI informant.

It was an installment on a $10,032 bribe from Modern Earthline of Philadelphia for Orlinsky's help in the company earning a contract hauling sludge to abandoned strip mines in western Maryland.

Orlinsky resigned his post and pleaded guilty to one count of extortion. He served 41/2 months in prison and was pardoned by Clinton two years ago.

After his release from prison, Orlinsky worked in a variety of jobs, including co-teaching a course at Towson University on politics, working as maitre d' at a seafood restaurant and selling lemonade at Oriole Park for $10 an hour.

He returned to government in 1988, when then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer appointed him executive director of a state program to plant trees.

"I am not sure that I shall ever be able to fully pardon myself for what I did. In my heart, there will always remain a place which says I did wrong," he once told The Sun of Baltimore.

Born in Baltimore, Orlinsky spent his teen-age years in New York City, where his father, Harry Orlinsky, was a prominent Talmudic scholar.

The son was described as an urban liberal who was full of ideas and energy. He was elected to the House of Delegates in 1966 and was elected City Council president in 1971. He made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1978.